


who am i, darling, to you

by veterization



Series: fluff verse [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:39:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7540057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles' grandmother comes to town. Stiles may or may not be a little embarrassed about introducing her to Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who am i, darling, to you

**Author's Note:**

> I fully intended to update this verse way, way, way sooner, but then some of the craziest, hottest, ugliest weeks of my life crept up on me because like a fool, I chose to move out of a third-story apartment in the middle of July. Amazing how time flies when you spend all day either panting on the floor or carrying stuff you've accumulated but don't really need down many, many (so many) steps.
> 
> I ALSO fully intended the next piece in this verse to be a hurt/comfort fest complete with Peter being kidnapped and Stiles worrying his little ass off, but then this idea crept in and demanded to come first. So eventually, after all the dust (and furniture) settles, that will be on the way.
> 
> Title is from the song Promise by Ben Howard.

Peter's average Sunday evening goes like this:

He and Stiles go out for dinner (the elegant French place downtown if Peter's picking, the Dairy Queen down the street if Stiles is), cap off with dessert at the nearest ice cream parlor, make a stop at the closest drug store to buy the lube Stiles always forgets to buy a day earlier, and head back to Peter's apartment where Stiles pretends to care about flipping through the channels, at which point Peter yanks him over on top of him in the armchair by the TV and feels him up.

Which brings him to now—Stiles on his knees sucking him off with the kind of enthusiasm that could make Peter's eyes roll into the back of his head while Peter sits, regally cushioned, in his favorite armchair and Stiles rubs his thighs.

It’s moments like this that really makes Peter consider asking Stiles to just go ahead and move in already so they can do this all day, every day, just make out and make each other come for hours on end. Stiles’ true calling is giving head, what with those lips and that tongue and that entire mouth in general, not to mention that Stiles takes on blowjobs like personal challenges, eager to make each one even better than the last. Stiles is the very definition of a quick study and is also lucky enough be to a complete natural, because despite those little tricks he’s picked up from Peter over time—curling his tongue right at the tip, how to work his throat around Peter’s cock—he’s been sucking Peter off like a goddamn pro since day one.

So Peter takes a moment to thank his extraordinary karma in this world that somehow, Peter is the one Stiles is bestowing with this monumental gift, wondering, not for the first time, why he would ever want to be good when being bad has rewarded him _so very much_. He looks between his legs to watch Stiles’ mouth sink down and slide back up on his cock, maintaining a rhythm that already has a tight knot of coiling pleasure gathering in Peter’s spine. Just the sight is orgasm-inducing.

He digs blunt nails into Stiles’ shoulder when he’s coming, Stiles swallowing him through it until he’s moaning out praise, hips bucking into Stiles’ mouth. It’s crazy that he ever lived a life where he didn’t have a boy hungry to blow him every night of the week and he didn’t realize what he was criminally missing out on.

“I want to see you,” he says, looking at Stiles’ flushed face through lidded eyes. “Look at me.” 

He cards his hands through Stiles' hair, petting the strands, until Stiles kisses the inside of his thigh and sits up, a shit-eating grin on his face after making Peter come so nicely. Or maybe that should be cock-eating grin.

"That was pretty damn amazing, right?" Stiles asks, leaning in to leave sticky kisses on Peter's hipbone while his stubbled cheek nuzzles his leg. "Tell me how amazing it was."

Peter lets his eyes flutter open and shut, reveling in the soft presses of Stiles' mouth against his thigh. He realizes that that sounded remarkably like something that Peter would say, and can't help but smile. "I think I'm rubbing off at you." And speaking of rubbing— "I'm going to have to get used to this sensation."

He slides one hand out of Stiles' hair to gesticulate at his—for lack of a better term—unruly beard. It doesn't even quite deserve a word as grand as _beard_ yet, more like a mustache growing way out of its rent-free zone, but it's definitely furrier than Stiles' typical clean shaven appearance. It is fairly attractive, and does make him look quite a bit older, but Peter hasn't quite gotten used to the way it catches and rubs against his legs when Stiles goes down on him.

The comment, however, is not appreciated on Stiles' end. "Tell me about it," he says with a pointed nod to Peter's facial hair. "That shit burns sometimes. And _you_ heal."

Peter shrugs, too sated and pleasantly sucked off to bother arguing. He slides his thumb down to Stiles' jaw, feeling the bristles of his growing hair. Definitely attractive.

"By the way," Stiles says as he twists out of Peter's grip and stands up from the pliant V of his legs. "My dad invited us for dinner on Saturday. You better have time."

"Big news, per chance?" Peter asks, not quite content letting Stiles slip away and wash up just yet, and he snags Stiles belt loop to reel him in closer to the armchair again. Peter hasn't had the privilege of making him come yet this evening and wouldn't mind changing that. "An engagement?"

"I don't know," Stiles says, letting Peter pull him in. "He finally told me about the ring, though. Like I didn't already know. He really should have more faith in my observational—hey now, are you listening?"

Stiles is looking down at where Peter's begun to unzip his pants, wiggling them off his hips. "I am," he says. "I'm an exemplary multitasker."

"Fine," Stiles says, apparently conceding that point—which he should, considering Peter has proven it on more one occasion by being able to suck Stiles off, finger his prostrate, and play with his balls simultaneously. "Anyway. He probably just misses me."

"And me?" Peter asks.

"He has to put up with you because I sleep with you," Stiles says, but the flat edge of his words loses some of its intention when he winds off into a pleased sigh as Peter pushes his underwear down and starts kneading his ass. "Don't think he actually misses your smartass comments about his desserts never being fancy enough."

"Is it so hard to serve a well-rounded meal when company's around?" Peter is pretty sure that if they keep talking about Stiles’ father, this evening is going to lose a fair bit of its sexual momentum. He refocuses them by leaning in and sucking a dark, possessive mark onto the curve of Stiles’ hip.

“Cooking’s not really his—hey, ease up on the teeth, you freak,” Stiles says, grabbing hold of Peter’s hair. “We can’t all be self-proclaimed master chefs.”

“Can we stop talking about your father’s skills in the kitchen?” Peter asks, scraping his teeth against the reddened spot on Stiles’ skin, absolutely refusing to ease up on the biting. “Or can we just stop talking about your father, period, while I’m touching your naked ass?”

“Good idea,” Stiles agrees, sucking in a sharp breath when Peter slides a few fingertips down and over to his entrance, just playing with the rim. “Maybe we could—ah. Talk about all this later?”

“Also a good idea.”

“Bed?” Stiles suggests, tugging on Peter’s hair, which Peter knows is Stiles’ surefire sign that he’s getting warmed up and no longer requires any of his clothes. Peter closes his mouth around his freshly created bite mark, flattening his tongue over it, smiling as Stiles sharply sucks in his breath.

“Why?” Peter asks, palming his ass and, in one swift tug, pulling Stiles down onto his lap. “Perfectly good chair right here.”

“I can work with—ha—that,” Stiles says, grinning, and when he tips down for a kiss, Peter meets him halfway.

\--

Peter doesn't mind dinner at Stiles' father's place. He's a nice man, and he no longer gives Peter the stern once overs he used to when Stiles would bring him around, apparently used to Peter's presence and convinced of the longevity of him being in Stiles' life by now. Not that Peter didn’t know that he’d thaw eventually. Peter is _charming_.

Which is probably a good thing, because as far as logic goes, falling for a kid with a father in law enforcement wasn’t his smartest choice ever made.

“So what’s the occasion, dad?” Stiles asks while he mops up the last of his dinner plate. “Big news?”

“Sort of,” the sheriff says.

“Sort of?”

“Well, your grandmother's coming into town for a few days,” he tells them.

“Grandma's coming?” Stiles asks. He looks ecstatic. “Sweet. I haven't seen her in—three years? And she always brings chocolate.”

Peter tries to imagine Stiles' grandmother and comes back with a mental image of a heavily cardiganed woman who carries sweets and has Stiles' eyes. Or perhaps his humor. Either way, Peter wants to meet her just to compare and contrast family member resemblance.

“Does she have any dirt on you, Stiles?” Peter asks, already hoping she brings albums full of photos of baby Stiles in onesies that Peter can cherish on his deathbed for one last good laugh. “I'll look forward to meeting with her.”

“My grandmother's a firecracker, you're gonna love her,” Stiles says, reaching across the table to touch Peter's wrist. “And hey, the only family of mine you've ever met is my dad, so this is kind of cool.”

“Um,” the sheriff says, and it takes Peter a moment to realize that there's a slightly pungent cloud of discomfort in the air coming from him. He gets to his feet, gathering up empty plates. “Stiles, can you help me get the jello?”

They head for the kitchen together, the sheriff taking that wave of tension with him as he goes, leaving Peter to wonder what has him so on edge, and if it's possibly that he's sitting on unsettling extra information, like that Stiles' grandma is coming on her last leg and will most likely decompose here during her visit. It doesn't take Peter very long to realize that he may not be all that far off and something's definitely up, if only because jello does not take upwards of five minutes to be served.

Well. If Stiles' father wanted to take this opportunity of serving dessert to have a _private_ moment, he should've gone farther than the kitchen, or at least not piqued Peter's interest so much. Peter tilts his head toward the kitchen door, focusing his hearing on their conversation.

“—just suggesting that you leave him out of this,” the sheriff is saying gently. “It might make things easier.”

“For god's sake, he's not an exotic pet that has to be locked up when strangers show up,” Stiles says. “He's civil. He's nice. He knows how to charm people.”

“Since when is your grandma the type to be charmed?”

There's a silence, which sounds an awful lot like Stiles losing this round of verbal sparring.

“He's not going to ruin everything,” he finally says, but he sounds a little uneasy. “And it's the twenty-first century. I'm pretty sure she can handle our relationship.”

“I didn't say he would, Stiles, I'm just advising you to... take it easy with your grandmother,” Mr. Stilinski continues. “Don't overwhelm her.”

“How would I _overwhelm her_?”

“The man who's almost twice your age and is also a werewolf that you're dating might do it.”

Another silence. Stiles must be off his game today.

“I wouldn't tell her about the werewolf thing,” Stiles says, sounding defensive. He sighs. “Look, it just feels really weird to have to hide Peter. Like he's some awful mutant to be ashamed of. That's really going to bruise his ego.”

“His ego will survive,” the sheriff says, and Peter hears fabric rustling, like he's patting Stiles' sleeve. “Just think about it.”

After a few tense minutes where Stiles must be rubbing his temples and trying to put together a rebuttal while the sheriff must be plating that jello—which, really, if Stiles doesn’t want Peter to complain about the dessert, maybe the sheriff could spring for something that doesn’t come out of a box and can be made in three minutes—they appear in the dining room both looking visibly stressed.

“You like jello, don't you?” the sheriff asks with a tense smile as he lays a plate of it in front of Peter. Peter would obviously prefer something a bit more gourmet, but given the time and place, he keeps silent.

“Peter,” Stiles starts, sitting across from him at the table. “We have—well, it's not exactly a problem. We have _news_.”

“Your grandmother coming for a visit means you want me to make myself scarce.”

“I—how did you?" Realization hits Stiles' face, and he narrows his eyes. “Will you ever stop eavesdropping from afar?”

“It saved you from three minutes of beating around the bush,” Peter says, grabbing his spoon and trying his first bite of jello. It's no triple-tiered cake, but it'll do. “You think I'm too much for her to handle?”

“Well.” Stiles shifts left to right on his chair. “Yeah.” He rubs at the side of his head, already looking marginally stressed. This is why family reunions are such _nightmares_. “And I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

Stiles normally wouldn't be sugarcoating this so much. Stiles is very up front and center with him, and typically doesn't mind giving him cold hard truths without any guilt whatsoever, which can only mean that all these niceties are secretly him begging for Peter to go along with his plan of keeping Peter in the sidelines. He's always much nicer when he's begging, although Peter prefers hearing it when they're both naked and he's on the brink of orgasm, not when he's pleading for Peter to be nonexistent while his family comes to visit.

“If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't have told you about you not being wanted when she’s around and just saved you all this mental anguish you're probably going through now,” Stiles says, proving once again that he doesn't know what to say to make Peter feel better. “But then you listened in and ruined it for yourself.”

Peter stares at him, watching as Stiles carefully ladles jello into his mouth.

“Where do I even begin?” he says. “Mental anguish?”

Stiles waves his hands in the air. “You're upset because I'm trying to hide you from my family. Verklempt. In anguish.”

“And I _ruined it for myself?_ ”

“I could've saved you the pain by just not telling you.”

“Lying.”

“ _Not telling_ ,” Stiles insists. 

They look at each other for a few hard seconds, clearly waiting for the other to give in. Peter refuses; he's clearly on the side of right here, which the sheriff must agree with since he doesn't jump in to Stiles' aid during the silence. That, or he's just promising himself to not get involved in this heated little lover's spat, which might be a wise decision.

“I've never hidden you away from my family,” Peter points out, voice lofty.

“Who, Derek? Let’s be real, I wouldn’t have minded all that much if you had.”

“But I _didn’t_.” 

“Come on, please? It'll just be a few nights where I'm over here hanging out with a senior citizen. It's not exciting. You won't be missing out.”

But Peter _will be_ missing out, because even if the woman is boring as sandpaper and hates Peter to his very core, he wants to be there. She's Stiles' grandmother and she's important to him and he loves her, and Peter wants to be involved, to meet her, to learn more about Stiles' family and possibly squeeze embarrassing stories out of them regarding Stiles' bad habits and toddler years for him to later use to his advantage. She’s a family member and Stiles doesn’t want her to meet Peter, and what does that say about Peter?

Peter puts his spoon down, thinking strategically about this. “What will you give me for staying behind?”

Stiles instantly colors, a harsh redness taking hostage of his cheeks. He rolls his lips into his mouth, eyes sliding over briefly to where his father is still sitting at the table.

“We can, uh,” he says, scratching his ear, “ _negotiate_ later.”

Peter's already thinking of espressos being brought to him at the ring of a bell, blowjobs whenever he wants, and requesting that Stiles wear Peter’s clothes to bed more often. If there's anything he's learned in life, it's to never let a moment of opportunity to reap in bribes pass you by.

“All right,” he says.

“So we're agreed?” Stiles asks. “You won't come to dinner on Sunday?”

“Fine,” Peter tells him. “I won't come.”

\--

Eight days later, it happens anyway. If there’s anything Peter’s learned aside from jumping on bribes, it’s that a little bit of lying here and there—which Stiles clearly isn’t averse to either—is necessary.

They're sitting in Stiles' car while Stiles is driving the two of them over to his father's house for dinner, just as Peter planned, ready to mesmerize the dentures off of Stiles' grandmother and prove Stiles and his naysaying wrong. Stiles, in between looking like he's ready to throw up over the side of the car, still looks a little confused as to how Peter managed to finagle his way into this dinner. 

“I could’ve sworn we said you’d stay home,” Stiles says. “Didn’t we agree on that?”

“You changed your mind,” Peter says.

“I didn’t. I really didn’t. Are you trying to Jedi mind trick me? It’s not working.”

“I’m in the car, aren’t I?”

Stiles looks at him, as if confirming this, and that a guilty conscience for leaving Peter behind isn’t hallucinating Peter next to him. He is, in fact, buckled in and fully dressed for a night of family fun, not a figment of anybody’s imagination. Stiles seems to accept this, even though he does so with a hard swallow.

“Okay, so,” Stiles begins, hands tight on the steering wheel. “Ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Peter repeats. “You really think that's necessary?”

Stiles nods. He looks—and smells, for that matter— _incredibly_ nervous. He keeps reaching up to pull at an already outrageously loose collar and is starting to sweat around his wrists, and all Peter wants to do is have him pull over the car and suck the tension out of him with a curbside mind-boggling blowjob, but he doesn't think Stiles would appreciate the suggestion right now.

He holds his palm out, counting on his fingers. “No talking about werewolves, murder sprees, memories from the coma, my dick, my ass, or my mouth.”

“As I always do with strangers?”

“I'm serious,” Stiles says. “This isn't just some random evening where we're hanging out with friends who've already seen the worst of you and somehow tolerate you anyway.”

“The compliments just keep rolling in.”

“ _Seriously_ ,” Stiles says, and yes, Peter gets it, he's serious, he's very serious here. “Only talk about things you would talk to the president with.”

“You want me to grill your grandmother on government spending?”

“Work with me here, Peter,” Stiles pleads.

He pulls into the driveway and flips down the visor, checking himself out in the mirror as he puts the car in park. Peter puts a hand on his thigh to relax him, but Stiles' nervous twitch at the touch doesn't seem like it had its intended effect.

“You look fine,” Peter says. “And you need to calm down.”

“I'm—I didn't think I'd be this nervous,” Stiles admits. “I haven't seen my grandma in years and I'm just... worried.” He sighs. “What if she finds out who I am and hates it?”

“Who you are?”

“You know. Some misguided kid who decided he was bisexual who's just kidding himself and is going through some deranged phase with an older guy.” He rubs his forehead. “And that's not even who I am. Just who she'll think I am.”

“And this is a woman you love and respect the opinion of?”

“Shut up,” Stiles says, pillowing his forehead on the steering wheel. “She's family, you know? You can relate to that. Your family is your pack, right?”

“Not everybody I'm related to is my pack,” Peter says, thinking darkly back to his far off married-in relative Ronald who Peter would not so much as pick up the phone for if he called, whether it's to say hi or ask for help calling an ambulance. “And somebody disapproving of you would pretty much cinch the deal.”

“I—what? Seriously?” Stiles looks at him, slightly awed. “If somebody didn't like me, you'd mind?” A crooked, self-appraising smile curves Stiles' mouth. “That's—shockingly nice of you.”

“Didn't need the word shockingly,” Peter says, checking his hair in the car door mirror and smoothing the sides back into place. From his reflection, Peter would say that he looks like the poster man of prim, proper, and exceedingly handsome gentlemen, and any grandmother worth her salt should recognize as much. “Yes, you're my priority.” He brushes one last errant strand back into place and turns to Stiles. “Ready?”

Just like that, the sweet moment has passed and the anxiety is back on Stiles' face, pulling at his mouth and twitching his eyebrows. He nods anyway, pushing open the car door and heading up the steps with Peter in tow.

Stiles rings the doorbell and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet while Peter stops to take in the ludicrousness of the situation. He's meeting his boyfriend's family like a seventeen-year-old boy, while said boyfriend stands in freshly ironed clothing next to him, all the while maintaining a large distance between them that could suggest extremely foul body odor. The door creaks open and Stiles' heartbeat spikes.

The sheriff answers the door, smile on his face as he sees Stiles. Then he sees Peter, and a portion of that smile fades. “Hey guys,” he says slowly. “Thought you had agreed that Peter would stay home?”

“He forced me. I was practically at gunpoint during the entire ride.”

“Stiles,” Peter says, frowning at him. How long have they been here, and Stiles is already throwing him under busses? Not a great sign. On another note, Peter is slightly impressed by his sense of self-preservation. “Your son has a very weak resolve.”

The sheriff looks at both of them like he's calculating how much the success of the evening just took a nosedive. “Well,” he says, moving aside from the door. “This should be interesting.” He tilts an arm inside. “Come on in.”

They step inside, and there on the couch in the living room is the woman of the hour, already the bane of Peter's existence: Stiles' grandmother. She looks up, eyes landing on Stiles, and visibly lights up.

“Oh, my boy!” she says with delight, rushing over to pull Stiles into her arms. She looks like an old, brittle lady whose house is full of wicker and outdated lace, with wispy hair and wrinkled skin, even her laugh seeming a little ancient in the croaky, delicate way it ascends her throat. She looks perfectly innocent, which is almost surprising, probably because Stiles' concerns of her judgment and prejudice painted a fairly ugly picture in Peter's head of a gnarly, bitter old curmudgeon. She pulls back just long enough to touch Stiles’ beard, eyes wide. “Oh, my dear, that beard! You look just like a homeless rockstar.” She chuckles, petting the tuft of hair on his jaw, and pulls him back in.

Stiles pats her on the back, and something in the way he laughs and holds onto her strikes something in Peter—a memory, perhaps. One of his own family during happier times, back when they were all alive, when pack meant everything. Maybe Stiles' urge to keep his grandmother close isn't all that strange, even if Peter wants to point out that family—functional family, anyway—shouldn't turn their back because someone's in a homosexual relationship with _excellent_ taste in men.

She pulls back from Stiles' hug, and her eyes turn to Peter. He gives her his best, most winning smile, one that's won over many a people over the years.

“And who is this?” she asks.

All right, here's the moment. Peter turns to Stiles, waiting for the grand introduction. After years of chasing down dangerous creatures and nearly dying in the process, something like this should be a piece of cake.

Except that he's not saying anything.

“He's my—my.” Stiles looks at Peter, eyes wide and eyebrows slanted with worry and just like that, Peter knows he's about to do something stupid with emotion as the culprit. “My dermatologist.”

Upgrade that to very, _very_ stupid.

“Your dermatologist?” she says slowly. “Been a while since I've heard of doctors doing house calls.”

“We're friends too,” Stiles says. He shoots Peter a look that screams pure agony, but Peter doesn't feel particularly inclined to jump in and sink into this pit with him. “He was just checking up on me. And my condition. And I invited him along to dinner.”

“Your condition?”

“Uh, yeah.” Stiles scratches at the side of his neck. “My skin has been... dry. And flaky. And weird.” He touches his cheek, as if to hide all of the aforementioned trouble areas. “He's been helping me out. Finding remedies.”

The sheriff chooses that moment to come out of the kitchen, not even realizing what toes he's stepping on as far as the situation goes.

“Steaks are done,” he says. “Let's eat.”

Peter seizes Stiles' wrist before he can skip his way over to the table—tripping over his web of lies on the way, no doubt—and gives him a look of confusion, anger, and extreme disapproval all rolled into one intimidating expression, to which Stiles mouths a long, drawn-out _pleeeeeeease_ and wrenches his wrist free.

What the fuck is going on with Peter's life. Seriously. 

When they all sit down at the table, the sheriff serving everybody platefuls of dinner, Peter is starting to wonder if this is what he deserves for wriggling his way into Stiles’ evening without his approval. This is definitely not what he wanted when he hijacked Stiles’ plan of him staying silently behind without a single complaint. He wanted to meet Stiles’ grandmother as himself, as Peter Hale, as Stiles’ overachieving boyfriend, not as Dr. Peter Hale, a doctor who probably aimed for head surgeon and landed somewhere in the consolation prize of dermatology instead. He doesn’t even know what to say.

“Well, I'm glad that you're tending to your skin health,” Mrs. Stilinski says as she tucks her napkin into her shirt. “It's important these days, especially with how strong everyone says the sun is getting.” She turns to Peter. “What sort of regime do you have Stiles on, Doctor—?”

“Hale,” Peter says, popping a bite of steak into his mouth. “Call me Peter.”

“Have you formally checked out Stiles' moles?” she asks. “Some of them—on his back, specifically—worry me. Are you familiar with them?”

“Oh, I'm familiar with all of Stiles' skin.”

Stiles kicks Peter under the table, shooting him a fast glare, and quickly changes the subject. “What he means is, he's a professional and knows what he's doing.”

“How long have you been working together, dear?” She reaches for her glass of water, then pauses as she seems to remember something. “He can't be the same doctor you saw back when you had that acne down your back in middle school. He was much older.”

“Wait a minute,” the sheriff cuts in, the perplexity clear on his face. “Dr. Hale?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles says, clicking his tongue. He licks his lips like he always does when he's dreadfully nervous, making the kind of hard eye contact with his father that is clearly trying to convey a message. “Peter. My doctor. My dermatologist.”

His father's confusion doesn't move an inch. “What?”

“Come on, dad,” Stiles coaxes, uncomfortable smile stretched on his face. “You know about Peter and the... work he does for me.”

“I thought I did,” the sheriff says, and Peter gives him a look that he hopes is a complete contrast to Stiles' look of utter, pleading panic to play along, instead one that is silently nudging his father to spill the beans. “What is it again?”

“He's my—my dermatologist pal. My skin guru.” Stiles scratches his head, his smile's discomfort level reaching mannequin proportions. “You know.”

“I find it awfully nice that you go out of your way to befriend your doctors, Stiles,” his grandmother starts saying, slicing a tiny bite off of her steak. “Your butcher—that's someone else with whom it pays off to form a bond.” She looks to Peter. “Are you close with many of your patients?”

“Of course,” Peter says evenly. “Although none of them are quite like Stiles.”

He squeezes Stiles' thigh under the table, which is admittedly a slightly underhanded move that is immediately met with Stiles' hand knocking him hurriedly away.

“He means that I’m special,” Stiles says. It’s like he has to be his grandmother’s translator, take all of the innuendo out that Peter is purposefully pushing in. “At least—my skin is. I’m not—we’re not—anyway.” He grabs the salad bowl in the center of the table, pushing it in Mrs. Stilinski’s direction. “Have you tried dad’s salad yet? Pretty sure this one’s a masterpiece.”

Peter watches as, for the next thirty minutes, Stiles does a truly remarkable job pulling random topics out of his ass to keep his grandmother from reentering the subject matter of Peter and what he’s doing here, at this table, next to Stiles. It’s like watching a four-year-old try to juggle five watermelons, swooping in whenever the conversation gravitates even slightly toward Peter again and hastily shoving it back toward the most innocent topic on earth. The only exception he allows is when his grandmother starts asking Peter questions about tips and tricks for skin health, which Peter then gets to bullshit his way through like a kid who’s completely freewheeling a test he forgot to study for.

He really, really should’ve just stayed home.

\--

After dinner, Peter takes a moment to separate himself from the madness that has become tonight's dermatology-driven conversations and the stuffiness of the scent that is the combination of Stiles' anxiety, nerves, and bold-faced lies. He steps out onto the backyard patio while the dishes are being cleaned up, leaning against the railing to stare across the yards and count swing sets, wondering when, exactly, he became something Stiles thought needed to be covered up.

Well. Covered up _again_.

Back when their relationship first started and it was nothing but constant nudity and Peter committing the taste of the skin under Stiles' knee to memory, secrecy had felt like a necessity, and an enjoyable one at that. They would roll around in the sheets when everyone was busy and wash off Peter's scent on Stiles' body in the shower, careful to keep their relationship a discreet arrangement only they knew about, which in a very naked-under-a-trench-coat and fucking-in-hotels-across-town way, was fun. Stiles didn't want to tell his friends about them, and Peter didn't care.

Eventually, he did. Or, like the majority of them, they found out thanks to sense of smell alone. Peter is glad that they know now, and is glad that they no longer have to fuck on the down low, and that they've made it past that stage of utmost discretion, but now it feels like they've almost regressed back into it, and the cloak of secrecy no longer fits Peter as comfortably as it once did. Now he has to sit and wonder what Stiles is so ashamed of, and why Stiles even lied in the first place, and if Stiles will ever reach the point of comfort that Peter has about their relationship. He's in love and is reaping all the benefits and has a gorgeous boy moaning his name whenever he pleases and is damn proud of all that. It just stings a bit to see that Stiles doesn't quite reciprocate the feeling. 

Honestly, even when they first started out fucking, Peter never really felt _ashamed_ of Stiles. Even though he was an annoying, underage, meddlesome brat of a boy, there was always a certain amount of smugness that seemed to overshadow the embarrassment of sleeping with such a young, loud, all-around irritating kid. There was satisfaction that Peter had managed to woo a stubborn, hard-headed boy—and with that ass to boot—and after giving in to the fact that he wanted Stiles and cared about him, he didn’t hesitate when it came to showing off what he had attained. He doesn’t think Stiles ever quite felt that way about Peter—that he was a prize, a gem, a secret he couldn’t wait to spill. Honestly, he would’ve preferred staying home to this.

At one point, the door creaks open and Stiles appears, lower lip bitten red and fingers nervous by his side. Peter spares him a glance over his shoulder.

“Hey,” Stiles says, sensing the cold shoulder Peter's trying to exude. “So, uh. That was all a little weird, right?”

“So your ass, dick, and mouth were all off the table for tonight, but your skin is fair game,” Peter observes dryly. “I wouldn't have suspected.”

“I'm sorry,” Stiles says, and he really does sound it. Peter hates that he does; he had really been hoping to fight over this with him until Stiles begged forgiveness. “I'm so sorry.”

“You are?” Peter asks.

“Yeah—of course I am.” Stiles comes over to the railing next to Peter. “I didn't mean for that to happen. I was going to be totally honest with her but then she just started—and I just feel like—it was shitty of me and I admit it, okay?” He curls his hand around Peter's hip, turning him around and easing closer to wind his arms around Peter's middle, under his jacket. “But I'm going to make this right.”

“How are you planning on doing that?”

“However you want me to.”

“Well,” Peter says, pretending to think about it. “You could always... tell you grandmother the truth and stop treating me like a skeleton in your closet?”

“See, I _knew_ this would bruise your ego,” Stiles says, putting his face into his hands before returning his focus back on Peter, touching his shoulders. “I'm not ashamed of you.”

“You are.”

“I'm not.”

“Then at the very least, from an unbiased perspective, you see something wrong with me that would make your grandmother, in turn, look down on you because you associate with me,” Peter says. “Yes?”

“No. _No_ ,” Stiles says, but that desperate edge to his voice takes some of the persuasiveness out of it. “You're just—different.”

“ _Different?_ ”

“I was just—not thinking. She was looking at me and I didn’t know what to say and I just blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.” He puts his face into his hands again, probably realizing how his explanations aren’t really making the situation any better. He rubs at his eyebrows, clearly frustrated, before lifting his head again. “I'm not ashamed of you,” Stiles says firmly. “It’s really not even about you. And honestly, is it even lying if it's your _family_?”

“Yes.”

Stiles frowns. “The Peter I know would've agreed with me.”

“The Peter you know is also trying to get what he wants.”

“Come on,” Stiles whines, sliding his hands up and down Peter's chest, rubbing his torso. “It's only for a few days. It could be fun.” He leans in to nibble briefly on the curve of Peter's earlobe. “Dr. Hale?”

Peter has to admit, there is something pleasing about that title, especially when Stiles is whispering it into his ear, and he's just about to lean into it and slide his hands around Stiles' back to slip beneath the waistband of his pants, when—

“Stiles!” his grandmother calls, the patio door opening, and Stiles jerks away from Peter like he's been stung by a jellyfish. “Sweetheart, can you help me get the dishwasher running?”

Peter looks at the twenty feet of space between them and raises his eyebrows, letting the distance between them speak for itself. Strangers on the subway stand closer.

Stiles must notice too, because he pinches the bridge of his nose and looks away. “I'm really not ashamed.” To prove his point, he leans in for a quick kiss after his grandmother’s closed the door but Peter resolutely turns his head, refusing to be this easily cajoled into forgiveness. Stiles' mouth catches his cheek instead, but before he can put more work into getting himself a proper kiss, his grandmother's voice calls through the walls again and Stiles sprints his way to the door.

“I'll just stick a bookmark in this conversation,” Stiles says, shooting Peter an apologetic smile.

“You do that.”

He disappears in the house again, leaving Peter to stand alone on the patio considering when a doctor making a house call is expected to leave. He's feeling just salty enough to think about driving off in Stiles' car and letting Stiles ask his dad to bring him home when he's done making nice and playing pretend with his grandmother, but just then, the sheriff walks outside, holding two condensating bottles of beer in what is probably a pity present.

“Hey,” he says, tipping one in Peter's direction. “Thought you might be thirsty.”

Peter accepts the bottle from him and taps the neck of it against the sheriff's, taking a swig. At least _he_ isn't laboring under the delusion that Peter's nothing more than a medical professional attending to Stiles' health, which he supposes he shouldn't take for granted. It took Stiles a while to tell his father about them and introduce Peter to him back when their relationship started too, but he never actually threw a wild fib into the air out of sheer desperation when they first met. This is definitely a new low.

“You seem a little upset,” the sheriff says slowly.

Peter looks at him. “Your son pretending that the extent of our relationship is me prescribing him hemorrhoid cream might have something to do with it.” He lifts the beer to his mouth, taking a swallow.

“Don't take it personally,” the sheriff says. “Stiles is just—he's young, you know? And he really cares about his family.”

“More than me, I suppose,” Peter murmurs around the rim of his bottle.

“Nah,” Mr. Stilinski says. “I wouldn't say that. He wouldn't even have brought you if he didn't.”

“I'm fairly certain he regrets doing so.”

“He'll tell her the truth,” he says. “He just needs to work up the courage. It's a different type of courage than the one he uses when he goes off saving the world with you folks.”

Peter shrugs, conceding to that. Then again— “He was brave enough to tell you.”

The sheriff snorts. “Are you kidding me? He didn't tell me. I guessed.”

“Excuse me?”

The sheriff waves at his own neck. “He kept coming home with all these ginormous hickeys on his neck, so I figured out he was seeing somebody. Not that I knew who. Never in a million years would I have guessed that _you_ —ah.” The sheriff stops himself, gently scratching his jaw. “You're a good couple,” is the backtracking he ends up coming up with.

“Thanks,” Peter says, taking another slow drink. “Good to know that Stiles never actually found the heart to admit our relationship to anyone himself.”

“It’s not that bad,” the sheriff says. “It's not like you're his—his mistress.”

“His mistress?”

“Yeah. It’s just you. He’s committed to you.”

_Committed_. Peter thinks that’s a bit of an amusing choice of words, mostly because as far as commitment goes, Stiles is the most gun-shy, cowardly, run-far-far-far-away boyfriend he could possibly be. Peter has to wonder if it would be different if Stiles was in a relationship with a woman, or even just a man who wasn’t Peter, but instead someone his own age without a slightly illegal past and a small addiction to power and manipulation. Maybe they would be someone Stiles would happily flaunt in front of his family, which is a _joke_ , because Peter is absolutely wonderful at bewitching people with his undeniable charisma and should be just as happily flaunted.

Peter looks at the neck of his beer, down the opening, where the glass is dark. “A little while ago he found a ring. My brother-in-law's ring, but he thought it was for him.”

“Yeah? And how did he react to that?”

“Badly,” Peter says, wondering if that's an understatement as he thinks back to the bizarre tailspin Stiles went into after finding the ring in his car. “It was... telling.”

“Of what?”

“Of his.” Peter lifts a hand, trying to put a delicate spin on his words for Stiles' father's sake. “Immaturity with relationships. His unwillingness to commit.”

The sheriff sets his beer on the rim of the patio, fixing Peter with a hard stare. “Tell me,” he says. “Are you planning on proposing for real anytime soon?”

“No.”

“Then why is it a problem that Stiles isn't ready for marriage yet?”

“It isn't about marriage,” Peter persists. “It's about Stiles not quite seeing me in his life in any concrete way.”

The sheriff leans an elbow on the patio railing. “I don't know,” he says. “You seem pretty stuck in his life if you ask me.” At Peter's doubtful look, he starts listing off examples. “He spends pretty much all of his time with you. All his friends know about you. His Facebook says he's in a relationship.”

Peter remembers the day that changed quite clearly. He was the one to initiate the online relationship change, and about seven minutes after the request must've arrived on Stiles' end, his phone buzzed with a text from Stiles reading _since when do you have a facebook????_ which seemed particularly eye-roll-worthy considering that Peter had friended him and Stiles had accepted a good few years earlier.

But he had accepted the relationship request saying "Stiles Stilinski and Peter Hale are in a relationship" anyway for a good five hundred Facebook friends to see, which is probably the point Stiles' father is trying to make.

“You know, one of the hardest things about a relationship is figuring out that the things you think are important in one are totally different from what your partner thinks are,” the sheriff says slowly. “With me and Claudia, for instance. She loved getting birthday cards, and I never thought they were necessary. She got mad at me every year for not writing her one.” He shrugs. “She thought they were the most romantic thing in the world and I thought they were… impersonal. But it mattered to her, and it took me a while to figure that out.”

Peter wrinkles his nose a smidge. He thinks meeting family beloved members is a bit more important than spending fifty cents and writing _happy birthday, hope you make it to the next one!_ underneath the pre-printed poem in a birthday card, but he keeps that to himself.

“So maybe meeting Stiles' grandmother as his boyfriend means a lot in a relationship to you,” the sheriff continues. “But for Stiles, other stuff probably does. Like doing the dishes together, or sharing coats. This—this is just his grandma. And you’ll meet her for real eventually.”

“Just his grandma,” Peter repeats. Everybody around him keeps acting like this isn’t a big deal, most likely to smooth his feathers even though they know they’re being grievously dishonest, because family is a big deal. For a long time, it was all Peter had, and it was good. It was a house full of mischief and growing children and teaching nieces and nephews how to grow claws on cue, and it’s something Peter didn’t appreciate at the time and can never have again. Stiles has it now and doesn’t want to include Peter. He doesn’t know how to interpret that as anything other than hurt.

The sheriff claps his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’ll happen.”

“No offense,” Peter says. “But she’s not exactly a spring chicken. Am I supposed to wait for Stiles to confess to her coffin?”

“ _It'll happen_ ,” he says again. “I promise.”

The patio door's hinges squeak back open and Stiles sticks his head out. "Hey. I told grandma how to work the dishwasher," he says. He turns to Peter. "Ready to go?"

Peter sets his beer down on the edge of the patio next to the sheriff’s, sighing. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll just grab my medical bag and we’ll be on our way.”

“You’re going to be like this all night, aren’t you?” Stiles asks.

“Yes,” Peter says, and thinks that passive-aggressive comments are the nicest possibly way he could respond to this situation and Stiles really ought to be grateful.

\--

The ride back to Peter's place that night is tense at best.

Stiles is clearly looking for something to say to diffuse the tension, but is coming up majorly short, his mouth opening and closing every thirty seconds with the clear intent to speak but with never any real follow through. Peter is in no mood to help him out and talk first; instead he keeps his eyes on the passing streetlights, looking out the window and feeling quite dramatically despondent as the scenery whizzes by. Tonight was a complete disaster. He started it out feeling dashing in his crisp button down and devil-may-care hairstyle, still under the impression that he was going to spend the evening chatting with Stiles' grandmother about all of Stiles' embarrassing habits while she chortled at all of his anecdotes, smitten with her grandson's partner, while Stiles watched fondly on. Needless to say, things did not turn out as expected.

Peter completely expects Stiles to beat a hasty exit after dropping Peter off at home, but he doesn't, instead coming inside with him like he's still hoping the alphabet will come back to him and he'll be able to properly articulate himself. He disappears into the bathroom to presumably give himself a pep talk in the mirror while Peter heads for his bed, ready to end this wretched day already. He just wants to sleep and wake up in a world where his boyfriend adores him, pampers him, and shows him off to every living family member in a fifty-mile radius.

He kicks off his shoes, trying his best to pretend that this evening actually went well. He closes his eyes, imagining it: Stiles introduced Peter with a broad smile, and his grandmother immediately enveloped Peter in her arms and told Stiles repeatedly what a lucky catch he got himself snagging someone like Peter. They moved to the dinner table, where she hung on Peter's every word about his tales of wild travels and amusing adventures, stories that entertained Stiles' father equally well. They all parted at the end of the night as pleasant friends, and on the ride home, Stiles whispered in Peter's ear all the ways he would thank him for making such a lovely impression on his dear grandmother.

A knock on the bedroom doorway snaps Peter out of this reverie, pulling him back to the cruel truth of a sharply contrasting reality.

"Excuse me," Stiles says, leaning into the bedroom doorway. His lips twitch upward with a hint of mischief. "Is the doctor in the house?"

"You mean the dermatologist?" Peter asks dryly, shrugging his shirt off his shoulders. Honestly, why did Stiles have to pick dermatologist of all things? Why not brain surgeon, oncologist, head of the hospital? "I'm afraid he's out."

Stiles slides into the room, still wearing that smirk that Peter is, unfortunately, responding to. It's a Sex Look.

"Really?" Stiles simpers. "Because I have something I would've loved for him to take a look at." He crawls onto the bed and props himself up on it like a nude art model. "If he could squeeze me in, I'd be sure to give him _extra thanks_ for his time."

He makes a show of licking his lips, which on anyone else, would look slightly overdone if not ridiculous, but with those pink lips, that talented tongue, it's actually pretty effective. Peter crosses his arms.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asks. "Beard irritation, perhaps?"

Stiles ignores him, instead unzipping his jeans and pushing them slowly down his hips, rolling onto his stomach so Peter can watch the swell of his ass be revealed. It's terrible that Stiles is so familiar with Peter's kinks. He's going to crumble like a prehistoric cookie, and Peter doesn't quite like crumbling.

"Actually," Stiles says, canting his ass into the air a few teasing inches. "I've been awfully sore around here lately."

Peter shakes his head, wondering when Stiles got _so good_ at pushing his buttons. When they started having sex, Stiles would never have been caught dead in a position like this, offering his ass up for destruction, all sexy pouts and needy eyes. Peter thinks he really ought to congratulate himself for a boy well deflowered.

"Think you could take a look?" Stiles asks, then lays down what is probably his trump card: "Dr. Hale?"

Peter, caught somewhere between eye-rolling and completely hard—a usual when Stiles is involved, really—decides restraining himself is a lose-lose situation. He unzips his pants and kicks them away, nudging Stiles' thighs apart and kneeling on the bed between them.

"You were never this wanton when we started fucking," he points out, but palms Stiles' ass cheek as he does so.

"Excuse me," Stiles says, all faux indignance. "This is just a doctor's visit. Nothing wanton about it."

"Right," Peter says. He rubs Stiles' cheek, massaging it gently before giving it a sharp smack and reveling in Stiles' resulting moan. "Well, I'll have to thoroughly examine you."

He slides his hands over Stiles' ass, pulling apart his cheeks to watch Stiles clench and unclench his hole, the sight of his furled pucker shifting urging Peter to switch gears and his attention to it, but his patience wins out in the end. He brushes a dry thumb over Stiles' entrance but goes back to his ass cheeks right after, leaning in to bite the soft flesh.

"Ah," Stiles gasps, back twitching. "What do you think? Is it bad?"

"Oh, it's bad," Peter murmurs, squeezing Stiles' cheeks again, touching the fading bite mark his teeth have left behind. "You might be here for a while."

"I— _ohhh_."

Stiles' words hit a wall when Peter leans in to lick a stripe over his hole, circling his tongue around the rim, dragging it over the spots he knows will drive Stiles crazy. Stiles responds oh so prettily to all of his ministrations, thighs quaking, mouth whimpering, hands clutching at the sheets. Peter will never admit this out loud, but he would sit through fifty dinners where he pretends to be Stiles' doctor, lawyer, realtor, used car salesman, just so he can keep having this, a beautiful boy stretched out beneath him begging him for more. He gives Stiles' ass another quick slap before easing his cheeks apart for better access, laving his tongue over Stiles' entrance until he's shaking.

"You're a very... _responsive_ patient," Peter murmurs, tracing Stiles' wet hole with his thumb before easing in the tip. Stiles draws in a sharp breath, hips shaking. "Aren't you?"

His breath comes out in a huff of laughter. "That's what they tell me."

"They? You see a lot of doctors, now?"

Stiles arches his head over his shoulder, grinning at Peter with heady eyes. For one hilarious moment, that conversation Peter had with the sheriff about Peter not being Stiles' mistress on the down low flits through his mind, and he nearly looks away to laugh.

"Just the one," Stiles says. "He tends to my needs in a very... passionate way."

"That's good to know," Peter tells him, then reaches over the bed for the bedside table to pull out the tube of lube. "Everybody loves a happy patient."

He slicks up his index finger and eases it inside Stiles, watching as he hangs his head and groans. Stiles is the perfect lover in ways that have nothing to do with his enthusiasm when giving head or the way he rides Peter's cock when he's in the mood, but also in the way he moves and shudders and sweats and lets out these breathy _ah, ah, ah_ s that Peter just wants to bottle up and listen to forever. He slides another finger inside him, finding little resistance, and rubs his free hand up and down the small of Stiles' back, occasionally straying further downward to squeeze his ass.

"More," Stiles says, thighs shaking. "Just a little bit— _yes_."

His head tips down with a groan as Peter nudges his sweet spot with his fingers, rubbing against it, and in a fit of inspiration, leans down to lick around where his fingers are penetrating Stiles. His tongue curls against Stiles' hole and something about it pushes Stiles unexpectedly over the edge, a broken cry of pleasure that Stiles seems to be biting into the pillow spilling out.

"Fuck," Stiles says. "I wanted to hold out.”

"Why?" Peter asks, pulling back.

Stiles whines. "Wanted you in me."

Peter grins. "That can still be arranged." He slips his fingers free of Stiles' hole, soaking in Stiles' resulting whimper. "I'm fairly certain I can squeeze another orgasm out of you."

Stiles rolls over onto his back, sitting up and reaching for Peter's belt, fumbling to undo it.

"Give me a minute," he says. "Like—five to eight of them."

"Seems awfully long," Peter says. "I could make you come again in three minute's time." Hell, he could probably make him come again right now if he tried hard enough. Stiles is so, so easy to rile up, so quickly stimulated, so sensitive after he's come once. "Lie back."

"Stop being so bossy," Stiles says, huffing, hands still working Peter's pants. "Let me undress you, will you?"

"I suppose I could let you."

Peter waits until he's done and his jeans and underwear have been shoved down his thighs and pulled away, both their shirts also being dropped, at which point Stiles is satisfied with his work and enough so that Peter can go back to his original plan of reducing Stiles to a writhing, moaning mess. He pushes Stiles down on the mattress with a hand to his chest and draws his soft dick into his mouth, feeling it harden on his tongue as he sucks mercilessly. Stiles clearly isn't expecting it, his head tipping back onto the pillows and thighs spasming before tensing completely, fingers dug into the sheets.

"You're so fucking—and people say I'm impatient," Stiles gasps, one hand clawing at Peter's shoulder. "That wasn't even three minutes."

Peter pulls off long enough to say, "You don't need three minutes," before he dives back in, licking Stiles into his mouth and adding his fingers back into the equation this time too, slipping three of them into Stiles' still slick entrance and circling them around.

Stiles spends the next few minutes trying to say something but failing to get the words out, broken moans or sharp inhales cutting him off. Peter coaxes him back to full hardness with his tongue, and when he licks a long stripe up Stiles' length just as his fingers crook against his prostate again, Stiles lets out a low, strangled cry and grabs a handful of Peter's hair.

"You need to fuck me," he says, sounding like he's been driven slightly wild. "Preferably immediately."

"There _is_ a reason people say you're impatient," Peter chides, but he has to admit, he's not minding it too much right now. He pulls his fingers out of Stiles and gives him one, two, three more teasing licks to the head of his cock before retreating, pulling Stiles' thighs apart. "Now, can I start fucking you or are you going to come too soon again?"

Stiles exhales on a puff of laughter. "You cocky asshole," he says, pinching Peter's side. "You're not that good."

"Oh, don't lie," Peter chides, grinning. He folds Stiles' legs together and bites the side of his knee, pressing his thighs against his chest. "I can tell when you do."

"You are such an arrogant little— _oh_."

All the breath seems to be pushed out of him as Peter lines himself up and thrusts in, stealing the smart words right out of Stiles' mouth. "What was that?"

" _Harder_ ," Stiles commands, ditching the banter for more pressing matters. If he didn’t sound so desperate, Peter would probably tease him a bit longer, keep his thrusts small and shallow, but right now, a rough, fierce fuck sounds absolutely _perfect_. He grips Stiles by the hips and obliges, pushing in that much harder as Stiles wraps his legs around Peter’s back and drags him closer. Peter notices then that there's already a dark mark right on Stiles' hip above his thumb, and he grins, touching over the spot.

"This hasn't healed yet," Peter points out, remembering the teeth he had sunk into that very spot a few days ago.

"Yeah," Stiles says, already breathless. "It takes time for some of us." He drags his nails down Peter's back. "Can you cut the small talk please?"

" _Very_ impatient," Peter chastises, but who can blame him at a time like this? He’s impatient too. He wants to grab Stiles' knees and spread them apart and really watch himself slide into him, but Stiles' legs are unforgiving where they're wrapped around Peter's back, frantic to pull him in closer, deeper. 

He touches that spot on his hip again, thrilled by it. He knows that Stiles is too. He won't admit it outside of the bedroom, but Peter knows that Stiles loves all those tiny possessive habits Peter indulges in, like marking him up, or having Stiles wear his clothes now and then, or squeezing his ass in public. He ducks in closer, slowing down the rhythm of his hips, and bites another spot on the canal in the middle of Stiles' chest, a primordial, hungry part of himself coming alive when Stiles keens and arches his back.

"You like it when I leave bruises," Peter murmurs, and even though he doesn't quite phrase it as a question, he expects an answer. When Stiles doesn't do anything but moan, the sound bitten off, Peter bites him again, sucking with a harsh ferocity over the mark.

" _Yes_ ," Stiles admits, back arching higher, spine twisting. "Peter—you gotta— _faster_."

Now that’s an order Peter can take, and without any pleading necessary. He leaves one last sharp bite on Stiles’ chest and then moves to his neck, mouthing over the tendons there, breathing in the scent of Stiles’ headiness. He flattens his tongue over the sweat under his jaw and speeds up the push of his hips, driving into Stiles faster, as requested, Stiles’ resulting whines so perfect that Peter wishes he could box the sounds up. He moves his grip to Stiles’ wrists, pressing them into the bed, and this time when he slides into Stiles, the angle is even better than before, _just right_ , and it makes it feel like there’s nothing but heat and bolts of lightning between them, the friction of Stiles’ hard cock pressed against his stomach such a dizzying sensation.

“Fuck,” Stiles groans, head tipping back and scraping the headboard—that’s probably going to hurt later—and heels of his feet digging into Peter’s back. “I fucking love you, you know that? _Ah, there_.”

And whenever Stiles says that, it’s almost like someone’s punched Peter in the solar plexus, shocking each time, and Peter can't help himself, he leans down and yanks Stiles closer by the hair until they're kissing, wetly and fiercely, Peter's thrusts getting more erratic as his orgasm builds in his stomach. Stiles is moaning into his mouth, fingers shaking with need, and there's nowhere else Peter would rather be right now, even with how shitty this entire night was and how much he wanted to be lounging on a beach alone to lick his wounds an hour ago.

And God, does Stiles know what he's doing, because he starts clenching around Peter's cock and dragging him in further and moaning like Peter's going to have to look into soundproofing the walls soon, and Peter feels himself getting closer, his vision shaking, Stiles' trembling, flushed, whimpering body the only thing he tries to focus on.

“Stiles,” Peter growls, his voice never quite sounding like his own when he gets this close, something rougher, deeper taking its place. He squeezes Stiles’ wrists. “I want to watch you come apart.” He snaps his hips forward, drinking in every hitch of Stiles’ breath as he does. “Tell me how badly you want it.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Stiles says again, voice choked, which is most likely the extent of his vocabulary right now. Peter prides himself on it, on reducing such a clever, articulated, shouting boy into such a beautiful mess. “Badly. _Badly_.”

“Want me to come inside you?”

“ _Yes_. Please, _yes_.”

Stiles comes at that, his release spilling over Peter’s chest as he bites into Peter’s arm to muffle the yell pushed from his throat, and it’s the kind of bite that could give even Peter’s teeth a run for their money, and _god_ , does Peter love this boy and all of the nuances that come with him, the way Peter would easily, dangerously, do anything for him.

Stiles shuddering underneath him through the aftershocks of his orgasm is enough to push Peter to the edge as well, the sights and sounds and smells of sensory input Stiles is giving him right now more than enough to drive Peter absolutely wild. He pushes him down into the mattress and bucks into him a few more times, his movements getting harder, sloppier, and when he comes, Stiles is there, pressing his mouth to the already healing swell of his bite mark on Peter’s shoulder. Peter wants to fucking amaze him, just keep going, just slither down his body and suck, lick, fuck more orgasms out of him until Stiles is shaking and completely blissed out. The night is still young and there are still _so many spots_ on Stiles’ body Peter hasn’t tasted yet today.

He lets go of Stiles’ wrists, sliding his fingers down Stiles’ torso and delighting in the feeble jolts Stiles gives in response to Peter grazing over his ticklish spots, and rubs his thumb briefly into the mess of Stiles’ come on his skin. There’s still that part of him—the part that isn’t completely marinated in a strong ego—that is awed that Stiles is still here, that Stiles stayed for all this time, that he didn’t announce that he had officially had his fill after the first time they fucked. Fuck, is Peter grateful. 

"Best doctor's visit ever," Stiles says, looking thoroughly wiped out, pleased, and sated as Peter slips out of him. "We have to do that again. I should get you one of those—what are they called? Stethoscopes." He reaches out to drag his hand down Peter's chest. "And maybe a white coat."

"That's how you want me to show up to talk to your grandmother?"

"God no," Stiles says. "That's how I want you to dress up in the bedroom when we replay this scenario."

"As fun as it was," Peter says, grudgingly trying to keep Stiles from floating off into post-coital haze that'll transition into sleep. He grabs Stiles’ discarded shirt and wipes their chests clean with it, tossing the wadded up fabric back to the ground when he’s done. "We should really talk about—"

Stiles shushes him with two fingers pressed onto Peter's moving mouth, and when Peter looks down at him, his satisfied smile has morphed into more of a pained grimace at the topic Peter's attempting to touch. He scoots over on the bed a few inches, rubbing the spot beside him for Peter to lie down and take.

"Not now, okay?"

Peter snatches Stiles' hand off of his mouth, holding him by the wrist. "When?"

"Maybe not when I'm fucked out and vulnerable," Stiles says. "Only thing worse would be you bringing it up mid-orgasm."

"It's not a persuasive tactic I'll shy away from," Peter warns.

Stiles grabs Peter's arm and tugs on it, pulling until he gives in and settles onto the bed next to Stiles. Stiles wraps an arm around him, pillowing his head on Peter's chest. They're smushed closer together than usual, Stiles practically barnacled onto him, which either means this is one of Stiles' distraction tactics to get him to drop the subject or he's doing his best to avoid the wet spot on the bed.

"Just stop talking for a little bit," Stiles says. "Sheesh. Let's enjoy the afterglow."

He kisses the underside of Peter’s jaw, then settles his cheek, rough with hair, on Peter’s shoulder. Peter looks at him through the darkness of the room, and even angry at him for his unthinking stubbornness and refusal to let Peter infiltrate his life, he thinks _I want to have you here all the time._ He draws his arm up to brush his thumb over the facial hair by Stiles’ ear, and instead says, “Still not sure how I feel about this ungroomed mess on your face.”

“Get over it,” Stiles grumbles, rubbing his cheek all over Peter’s chest in a show of defiance.

He thinks about what Stiles' father said, how Stiles may not be clamoring to shout his love for Peter from the rooftops, but he still cares enough to shout it from Facebook's proverbial rooftops, and shows how he cares in his own ways. Maybe he's right. Maybe Peter should just go for it and give Stiles a copy of his key and tell him to move in already so he doesn't have to split his movie collection and his underwear drawer and his medication into two different places.

"You know," Peter murmurs onto Stiles' head, running his fingers up Stiles' shoulder. "Your father told me tonight that he had to _guess_ that you were seeing someone."

Some of the relaxed, pleasantly post-coital laziness oozes out of Stiles' body like somebody's pulled a drain. He lifts his head, propping his chin up on Peter's chest.

"In my defense," he starts, which Peter knows by now is never a great beginning to a story when Stiles is the one speaking, "I was going to tell him. And I was the one to tell him that it was you I was dating."

"Mmhm," Peter says, still not quite convinced of Stiles' alleged bravery. "How long did it take you to do so?"

Stiles shifts, looking over at the wall. "Eh," he says. "A bit. I wasn't quite sure how to break the news."

"And what was it that you ended up telling him?"

“I, well. I told him that I was going out with somebody that he probably shouldn’t run a background check on,” Stiles says. “Just for his own sake. Obliviousness is bliss and all that.”

“ _Please_ ,” Peter snorts. “Nothing has ever been legally reported against me.”

“Hmm,” Stiles says. “Maybe for the sake of the general public we should do something about that?”

Peter gives him a good yank on the hair. “You little shit,” he murmurs, ignoring Stiles’ chuckling. “You were in the middle of telling me about how you shamefully disclosed me to your father.”

“That’s not—just put yourself in my position. How would you have told your dad about someone like yourself?” As Peter opens his mouth, Stiles immediately seems to regret his decision, saying, “Never mind, don’t answer that.”

“What?”

“You’ll just toot your own massive, totally inflated horn.”

“ _What I was going to say_ ,” Peter says hotly, “is that you don’t always have to reveal the unfavorable bits. I certainly wouldn’t have told my family about your fingernail chewing, constant ADD, not to mention your rampant commitment phobia—”

“None of that is exactly equal to murder, but okay.”

“—your impatience, the way you eat French fries like a _toddler_ , how you can’t properly make a bed to save your life—”

“Okay! You can stop now, jesus christ,” Stiles cuts in, kneeing Peter in the thigh. “I get it.” He grabs Peter’s cheek, shaking it, which is a rather belittling move Peter’s not too fond of. “Listen to me. I’m not ashamed of you. I’ll keep saying it until you believe it.”

It’s nice to hear, admittedly, but Peter would prefer action over words right now. It’s easy to say whatever you want without any real backing behind it, and Peter isn’t impressed by it. He wants to be shown off to Stiles’ grandmother like the star jewel in the crown he is.

“Except for when you get all jealous when I so much as sneeze in another guy’s direction,” Stiles says, poking Peter in the ribs. “Then you’re just downright embarrassing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. But the rest of the time, I swear I’m not embarrassed.”

He _really_ is a little shit. Peter encircles his wrist with his fingers, squeezing. “How about we go to sleep before you dig yourself deeper?”

“What, you gonna send me to the couch?”

“I might,” Peter says.

“You wouldn’t,” Stiles says, but he slings his leg over Peter’s anyway, like tangling them up like seaweed will somehow keep Peter from being able to shake him off and banish him to the sofa. He chuckles, settling his cheek back down on Peter’s chest and making himself comfortable. “Love you.”

“You better,” Peter growls, and lets his eyes drift shut.

\--

On Thursday night, the evening of the second dinner with the Stilinski family and their matriarchal head, Peter does the unthinkable and calls Derek.

Eventually, he thinks, he will learn to stop talking to Derek for advice.

He leafs through his closet looking for the proper outfit while he holds his phone out in front of himself, Derek filtering in through the speakerphone. The first time he styled himself for Stiles' grandmother, he was going for something timeless, sophisticated, and approachable, and now he's going for something that a dermatologist might believably wear. Probably something _terrible_ , like cargo shorts and a striped polo shirt, a mental image that is already making Peter cringe internally.

"What does it mean," Peter asks, "that Stiles doesn't want to introduce me to his grandmother?"

"That he's ashamed of you," Derek says, no finesse, as usual. "Why is that even a question?"

Peter purses his lips. "I was hoping you had a slightly more complex answer."

"So you wanted me to lie and make up a story that takes all the blame away from you?"

His lips thin further. "Charming," he says, wondering—not for the first time—when he's going to delete Derek's number out of his phone. "It has nothing to do with me," he insists, giving Derek another chance to redeem himself and agree. "It's all in his head. Some deeply buried fear that his family will hate him for the life he's living."

"This is impressive."

"What is?"

"The hoops you're jumping through so this makes sense and you're not involved," Derek deadpans. "Has it occurred to you that Stiles might not be proud of having a psycho with a criminal history as a boyfriend?"

"Why is everybody so convinced I have a criminal record?” Peter huffs. “I’m smarter than that.”

“And I’m guessing you’re really only offended because you’re amazed that anyone could actually be ashamed of you, instead of putting you on parade floats,” Derek says, which really, that’s just ridiculous. “You expected Stiles to want to show you off. To think as highly of you as you do of yourself.”

Peter really, really shouldn’t have called. “He’s my boyfriend,” he says, bristling. “He should think highly of me.”

“There’s a good chance that he doesn’t.”

Derek really doesn’t pull any punches. Peter ponders—only for a moment—if he would prefer the opposite, Derek simpering on the other side of the line about how fantastic and magnificent Peter is and how he’s a shining diamond, which would probably be much worse than this. Although, truthfully, a middle ground would be best.

“Why are you even telling me any of this?” Derek asks.

“Because I, stupidly, thought you would of some help on the subject,” Peter grumbles. And there may have been an even stupider part of himself that thought that Derek might tell him something other than what dark conclusions Peter has already come to. Something, anything, other than _Stiles is ashamed of you_.

He’s not used to caring what people think of him. He _loves_ brushing off other people’s opinion of him, relying on only his own perception of himself, but there’s Stiles, the eternal exception, making him want things and feel things and love things and suddenly, worst of all, care about what conclusions people are drawing about him. And that’s the most terrible thing to come out of somebody sucking his dick on the regular ever.

“You should be telling Stiles this, not me,” Derek says.

“I have,” Peter says. “He keeps saying he’s not ashamed.”

“And is he lying?”

Well, no. Peter hasn’t heard that familiar blip in Stiles’ heartbeat when he says so, which is odd, because Peter had been so sure Stiles was lying, that he was doing his best to cover up what was the humiliating truth of being embarrassed by his own boyfriend. And he hears that blip _a lot_ because Stiles is absolutely terrible at telling the truth for long periods of time, even if it’s something as small as _nah, Chris Evans really isn’t my type_ or _sure, I can make the bed._

“He isn’t.”

“Then he isn’t,” Derek says. He’s making all this sound so simple when it isn’t, it’s layers upon layers of Stiles’ insecurities, and honestly, some of Peter’s insecurities as well, and it’s not that easy to wrap up in a neat little bow. Peter makes a sound, something frustrated from the back of his throat, and Derek sighs. “I don’t know what you want me to say here, Peter. Talk to Stiles.”

“Fine,” Peter says. “As usual, Derek, you’re of absolutely no help.”

“I’m glad,” Derek says, and then hangs up.

If nothing else, however, his timing is impeccable, because right when the calls ends and Peter mutters a few choice words under his breath about how useless family really is, there’s a knock at the front door and Stiles lets himself in, his familiar scent wafting through the door. He shows up in the bedroom after a few seconds during which he helps himself to food in Peter’s fridge, all dressed up and ready to spend another evening lying straight to his grandmother’s face. And for some demented reason, Peter’s encouraging all of this.

"Hey," Stiles says. He's in pressed slacks that make him look like he's about to go to a job interview at the White House. "You all ready to go?"

"I suppose," Peter says. He's not in a polo shirt, so he might never be entirely ready to play the part. Derek's voice nags at him, distracting him from his wardrobe for a moment. "I was... considering things earlier."

"Uh huh?" 

"Perhaps I shouldn't come," Peter suggests. "Doctors aren't usually quite so frequent with their house calls."

"You don't have to come as my doctor," Stiles says. "Come as my... friend."

_Friend_. Peter doesn't think Stiles and him have _ever_ been friends. They don't talk like friends, they don't text like friends, they don't _fuck_ like friends. He doesn't want to walk around for another evening answering skincare questions acting like Stiles' pal and nothing more. They are more, and he's never felt ashamed about that.

"I think I'll pass," Peter says.

"Come on."

"No," Peter says, getting to his feet. "You're many things to me, Stiles, but not my friend, or my patient."

"I know that. You know that." He throws his hands into the air. "Hell, all my friends know it. Does it really matter so much if one teensy tiny person doesn't?"

Peter looks at Stiles, clearly wrought with anxiety, like he's being pulled in two opposing directions, one that's telling him to be a good boyfriend, and the other telling him to be a good grandson. Maybe his father is right, and this is just Stiles being young, which he is, not that he looks it with that ridiculous scruffy beard.

Peter rises to his feet, sighing. "Stiles," he starts. "How would you have felt if I never told Derek about us, and still didn't want to?"

Stiles is quiet, mouth shut.

"And how would you feel if every time I brought you over to his place, I told everyone you were my dog walker?"

A single flicker of annoyance with the example narrative Peter's providing him crosses over Stiles' brow.

"And how would you feel if whenever you brought up feeling like my dirty little guilty pleasure, I brushed you off under the guise of fear that Derek could, potentially, react badly to the truth because of some dormant homophobia?"

He puts his arms on his hips. Stiles' brow keeps twitching, like he doesn't know quite where to start, or if he should even bother quarreling about the specifics here when it would be easier to just concede and apologize.

"I wouldn't feel great," he admits in a small voice. "And I'd probably question if you really wanted to be with me."

"Is that so?"

"But," Stiles cuts in. He slides his hands over Peter's shoulders, and this time when Peter looks at him, his eyes are pleading. "I'd also respect your decision if you told me you just weren't ready, and just needed some time, because you love me and care about me and don't want to jeopardize something good."

"You would not."

"Maybe I would," Stiles says, defiant as usual. "You don't know. It hasn't happened before."

"Yes," Peter says. "And what does that tell you?"

"That you're without friends and family to tell about me."

"No," Peter says from between closed teeth. "That I'm understanding and empathetic and considerate of your feelings."

"Look, please?" Stiles says, switching tactics and going from hard-headed logic to unabashed begging like a poor telemarketer. "Please, just one more night? Then she's leaving and everything goes back to normal. I don’t want to go without you, I feel shitty enough as it is without leaving you behind."

And he has an unfair advantage, really. He has these big brown eyes that Peter is an unwise sucker for, the very sight of them opening wide and staring up at Peter buttering him up embarrassingly well. Peter's ashamed with himself for falling for it.

And then Stiles crawls a hand up Peter's shoulder and says, "Do you need me to beg?" and that's the end of Peter's resolve.

"Perhaps," Peter says, hands finding Stiles' hips. "Try it."

Stiles leans in until his lips brush Peter's as he talks. "Please," he murmurs slowly, taking Peter's lower lip between his teeth. "Please," he says again. "Pretty pretty pretty please will you do it for me?"

He pulls on Peter's shirt before he can respond, pushing their mouths together in a rather filthy kiss, which Peter is fairly sure is just another form of begging, really.

For his dignity's sake, Peter makes a bit of a show sighing, rolling eyes, and taking his time before giving in. "Fine," he says. "But that begging—" He squeezes Stiles' waist, pinching the skin through his shirt. "—it better continue tonight."

“It will,” Stiles says, and he doesn’t even sound too upset about it. For someone who sure hates groveling to Peter, he doesn’t mind at all when there’s filthy sex involved. “Now can we go?”

“We can go,” Peter reluctantly agrees. But tonight better be really, _really_ worth it. 

\--

Dinner that night is not the worst thing in the world. Oddly enough, Stiles’ grandmother does not ask why Stiles has brought his dermatologist twice now to an otherwise family-only dinner, and even more oddly, Peter doesn’t feel all too strange about it either. He just fits in at the table, even under a ruse and a disguise that isn’t him, and if he squints and pretends very hard, he can imagine that he’s actually here under honest circumstances. And it all sucks a little bit, that he’s reached a point in his life where he wishes he was doing the truthful thing and isn’t in the mood to deceive anybody, but those are the sacrifices he makes for Stiles.

There's a voice in his head that keeps telling him to just be happy he's here at all, but that voice sounds much too grateful and idealistic to be Peter's own, so he ignores it and goes back to silently brooding about the fact that he's technically here in the Official Capacity of a skin-related emergency should Stiles suddenly need attending to.

God, this is ridiculous. He should leave. Fuck all of Stiles' begging and pleading for Peter to be here for some inane reason. He should make a dramatic exit right now on principle and refuse to be puppeted around any longer. A week ago, he was a happy man with an equally happy boyfriend, and now all of that has been turned on its head because of a woman so old she probably sneezes out dust.

He’s just about to do it, too, just get up and make an excuse about needing to attend to a patient whose skin just suffered a run-in with a colony of bees, when the night suddenly takes an interesting turn.

"Stiles," Mrs. Stilinski begins. "Are you seeing anyone special right now?"

Peter watches as Stiles stops mid-chew. He swears to god, if Stiles starts making up some goody-goody girl to please his grandmother, he's going to throw his napkin down and walk out, then let the drama speak for itself.

"Yes," Stiles says. His eyes briefly meet Peter's before they shoot back to his plate like that nanosecond's worth of eye contact is giving too much away. Peter shouldn't have come. He feels like he's dating a closet-case teenager, which is not the least bit as glamorous, or even as dramatic, as the media portrays it to be. "For a while now."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. They're—uh, they're really great. We really... challenge each other. Kinda like you and grandpa used to."

Mrs. Stilinski gives a tinkering laugh. "Oh, what memories," she says. "The way we would tease each other, vex each other—I never tired of it." She smiles at him. "Who is it?"

"Uh. Well, you know them," Stiles volunteers, setting his utensils down. He takes a deep breath and holds it, the air suddenly reeking of brimming anxiety, and Peter wonders if he's actually going to— "It's Doctor Hale. Peter. He's—he's my boyfriend."

Peter can hardly believe it. He had completely resigned himself to the idea of Stiles being a coward afraid of his ninety-year-old grandmother's prejudice and having to hide his real self in a noble, acceptable doctor's skin because of it, and Stiles admitting the truth and taking responsibility for their relationship and not being ashamed, it's so overwhelming it's almost arousing. It's like stumbling onto a fireworks show when you think you're just strolling around outside on a dark, boring night. Holy _shit_ , is Peter going to fuck him thoroughly tonight.

"Doctor—your dermatologist?"

"He's not my dermatologist," Stiles pushes out in one rushed breath. "He's my boyfriend. Serious, grown-up, I think I'm going to marry him someday boyfriend."

"Pardon?"

Mrs. Stilinski, bless her soul, looks slowly from Stiles to Peter like she needs at least five minutes to digest this information. Then she puts down her fork, clearly confused.

"Stiles, didn't you have eyes for that pretty girl from school not that long ago?"

A red blush takes control of Stiles' cheeks. "Yes, but—she's married now and I'm happy for her and, and that was _years_ ago and come on, people grow out of their high school crushes." He takes Peter's hand where it's holding his napkin up on the table. His hand is sweaty and disgusting but Peter isn’t even dreaming of letting go. "Please don't be upset."

"Upset?"

"About—about this. Me going out with a guy and not—I don't know. Giving you great grandkids and being someone you can be proud of."

"Someone I can be proud of—Stiles." She pulls her napkin out of her collar and throws it onto the table, her demeanor shifting from frail, friendly grandmother to stern, elderly librarian in a matter of seconds. It’s almost frightening. "Can I speak to you in the kitchen?"

Stiles looks panicked, like he's about to be stuffed into the oven for his sins, but he gets up and follows his grandmother into the kitchen anyway, hustling after her. Peter and the sheriff exchange very dry looks. Peter has to say, the sheriff might have might an excellent call by deciding not to get involved in this drama when it began.

“You’re going to listen in, aren’t you?” the sheriff asks.

“Of course I am,” Peter says, and focuses his ears. It feels like he’s trying to tune into a very melodramatic radio station.

He can hear them clearly in the kitchen. He can picture them pretty clearly too—Stiles fiddling with the hem of his shirt, with the line pressed onto his ludicrously proper pants. His grandmother standing as tall as she possibly can next to him, lips a thin white line. If Peter weren’t such an advocate for breaking the rules, he’d say that this is exactly what Stiles gets for scheming and deceiving a poor old woman.

"My boy," she starts crisply, "what on earth made you think that there would ever be a world where I wasn't proud of you?"

"I don't know!” Stiles says, voice terribly frazzled. “I thought you'd frown upon all this or hate me or try to convince dad to send me to one of those conversion camps where everybody comes back robotically programmed. How was I supposed to—"

"And why you were so convinced that I would despise you that you pretended your lover to be your doctor is beyond me," she continues, steamrolling right over Stiles. "How is lying to your grandmother any less shameful than what you thought I would shame you for?"

"I just thought that—"

"I can only hope that you haven’t completely sabotaged your relationship with this façade for my benefit.”

Stiles sighs. “I didn’t.”

“I’m going to want to talk to him, you know.”

“ _Grandma,_ ” Stiles says, and he sounds so horrified, like a little kid pleading with his mother not to reveal anything embarrassing to his friends. It makes Peter smile, and he wads up his napkin and presses it to his curved mouth. “You really shouldn’t.”

“I want to speak with him,” she says anyway, firm in her request.

“Grandma,” Stiles says again, but she’s already back in the dining room, eyes landing on Peter. 

She clears her throat. That Disapproving Librarian Look hasn’t faded yet.

“Mr. Hale,” she says, putting extra emphasis on the _Mr._ , which for one unbelievable second, almost makes Peter feel bad for deceiving her with the Dr. Hale ploy, right before he remembers that a) he will not be intimidated by a grandmother ten inches shorter than him and b) he never approved this ridiculous hoax in the first place. “Can I speak to you as well?”

“Just Peter is fine,” he says, but he scoots out of his chair nonetheless and follows her into the kitchen.

She corners him against the fridge surprisingly efficiently for a woman who presumably has a social security number in the single digits, eyes hard.

"You and my boy," she says. "Are you as serious about him as he is about you?"

Peter wants to say yes, obviously, and was she even paying attention, because Peter often feels—foolishly so—like he wears his affection for Stiles like a crown for all to see. Instead he goes for a modest, "I am."

“You’re quite a bit older than him.”

“Not that much,” Peter says, straightening up, because come on, he can pass for late twenties. He’s classically handsome.

"He's not your secret affair under the table?" she continues. "You don't have someone you come home to that he doesn't know about it?"

Stiles would clobber him with a frying pan if he did, to say nothing of the brigade of wrath that would come Peter's way in the form of all of Stiles' ride or die friends. He keeps the snort of derision at bay, though, deciding that this isn't the time or place.

"No."

“And you aren’t his dermatologist?”

“Never was,” Peter says. He bristles a little bit, not quite enjoying the feeling of sitting in hot water. “In my defense, this was entirely your grandson’s wicked little brain that came up with this lie.”

A small smile graces her face. “And you played along with it because?”

Because he loves Stiles. Because he would’ve done worse. Because he _has_ done worse for a lot of stupider reasons, but it felt nice to lie and plot for once for a reason better than power and money and fame. “Because he wanted me to,” Peter says. “"And despite being an enormous handful who drives me up the wall on a daily basis, I want to do what he wants."

This might be the most fragile, romantic, human thing he's ever admitted about himself to someone other than Stiles. Peter prides himself on being all mystery, all smoke and mirrors and dark mischief, and yet something inside of himself was just compelled to confess that Stiles—that scrawny ass child of a man—takes him and his better judgment and turns it all upside down, taking his selfishness and his greed and his bad habits and swapping them all out for a desperate, unexplainable need to keep Stiles around, forever. He is fucking wrapped around Stiles' finger and it is _so embarrassing_.

Stiles' grandmother is still smiling, stronger now. "You know what?" she says. "You remind me so very much of my husband."

"Pardon?"

"He had so much passion, and he never wanted anyone to know. Full of bark, no bite,” she says. Oh, Peter definitely bites, but he still understands the metaphor she’s trying to present to him here. For a very long time, he was so sure that caring—about people, about anything other than himself—was a mistake, a weakness. And then Stiles came along and Peter got him for himself and suddenly— “He never wanted anyone to know how much he cared.” She smiles and leans in closer, a fond, affectionate look on her face sliding over the grim severity. “I think you two complement each other quite well," she says.

Now that isn't something Peter has ever heard before. He's thought it and he certainly knows it himself, but nobody else has ever brought it up and validated it. It’s nice to hear.

"I agree," he says.

“I’m glad.” She gives him one last long look, like she’s looking for dishonesty. For once in his life, Peter isn’t even close to lying. "All right," she finally says, relenting, and reaches into her sweater’s pocket. "Treat him well, then, you understand?" She pulls a twenty dollar bill out and presses it into Peter's hand. "Take him somewhere nice tomorrow for breakfast."

Peter looks at the crumpled bill, wondering if this is what acceptance feels like, if this is what he wanted, if this is what he expected out of meeting Stiles’ grandmother. They may have taken a few strange detours along the way, but yes, he thinks this is a nice place to have ended up.

And with that settled she heads back for the dining room and rejoins the table, tucking her napkin into her shirt once more and resuming the conversation, normal as can be.

Well. If this is really how simply family issues can be resolved, Peter should really take notes for Derek to learn from.

\--

"That was a brave thing you did," Peter says, leaning in the bathroom doorway. "I didn't think you had the guts. I was... pleasantly surprised."

"Of course I had the guts," Stiles says. He's standing in front of Peter’s bathroom mirror, rifling through the medicine cabinet. "I'm a badass who fights monsters."

"This takes a different kind of bravery," Peter says. "Your father and I discussed it at length."

"You did?"

"Yes. The point is—you surprised me. I think you'll always be surprising me." He reaches out and touches the side of Stiles' cheek, suddenly unable to keep from doing so. Stiles is too busy knocking over mouthwash bottles to notice. "What are you looking for?"

Stiles sighs. "A razor." He looks in the mirror again, sliding a hand down his jaw. "I'm not sure the beard is working. And I'm kind of sick of food getting caught in it." He points at Peter's facial hair. "How do you avoid that?"

"I eat like an adult," Peter says. "I also don't grow it out to a point where it can hide leftovers."

"So you think I should shave it off?"

"I didn't say that," Peter says. He touches Stiles' cheek again, this time taking his time to feel the bristles of his short beard. "There is something... inviting about it."

"Inviting, eh?" Stiles asks, giving him what he probably thinks is a very compelling, seductive look complete with moving eyebrows, which Peter knows by now means he's trying his best to do bedroom eyes. "So I should keep it?"

Peter shrugs. "Your choice. Depends on if you can handle the hygiene, the responsibility, and the grooming."

"It's not that complicated."

"It is," Peter insists, running a thumb down his own jaw—smooth, gently and artfully stubbled, a carefully cultivated look—to prove his point. 

"You can tell me if you don't like it," Stiles says, turning the razor around in his hands.

"And will you actually listen?"

"Maybe," Stiles says. "I don't—listen, I care about your opinion."

Peter's eyebrows lift up to his hairline. "Is that so?" Because he can recall at least twenty incidents where that hasn't been the case, the most recent being a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond where they had differing preferences on what bedsheets Stiles should purchase and Stiles told Peter, in no uncertain terms, _fuck that ugly ass red color, they're my sheets and I intend to like them._

"Maybe not all the time, but. Well, I care about _you_." Stiles looks at the sink, shoulders slightly sheepish as he focuses in on the faucet. "You know, it really never was about you. I know you thought it was, but it wasn't."

"I know," Peter says. "I realized you weren't lying."

"When everything first started in this town and Scott became a werewolf and everything went haywire, I was keeping so many damn secrets from my dad, and I hated it. I was just so worried that he would, I don't know. Not believe me. Judge me." Stiles looks over at him. "Ever since I lost my mom, I'm weird about family, okay? I hate the idea of losing them because I'm... disappointing them, I guess?"

"Nothing about you is disappointing, Stiles."

"Thanks," Stiles says, and he actually sounds like he means it. Peter can't believe he was absolutely fucking right about this and that all of this was a whirlwind of anxiety, dark thoughts, and lack of self-esteem storming around in Stiles' brain, and actually had nothing to do with his own shady past. He can't wait to call Derek up and tell him. He can't _wait_ to tell Derek that he isn't the cause of something for once, and that he really is the parade-worthy grandson-in-law everybody wants. "You said something to me the other day that I've been thinking about a lot. You said that I was your priority."

Peter shifts his shoulder against the doorway. "Mmhmm."

"It was—it was really sweet, okay?" Stiles admits. "It was nice and I totally didn't expect it. You just keep..."

"Spoiling you?"

"...surprising me with all the romantic stuff you do sometimes. You said that I surprise you and you know what, you surprise me too." Stiles puts the razor down, facing him. "And I don't want you to be the only one being romantic. So—no more Dr. Hale. No more pretending. Not even if the queen stops by."

"That's your big romantic gesture? Not hiding me under the rug?"

"Help me out here, Peter," Stiles says, not amused. "What I'm trying to say is that I know these last few days weren’t great for you and I should really start making you a priority too." He throws his hands out, like unveiling a brand new version of himself that’s actually going to take Peter’s feelings into consideration. "No more dermatologists."

"Thank you," Peter says, and Stiles nods. Then he idly traces the sink's faucet, throwing Stiles a quick promiscuous glance. "But I was thinking that we didn't have to say goodbye to Dr. Hale just yet."

This time it’s Peter turn to give Stiles a promiscuous look. A spike of arousal hits the air and Peter's nose like a shot of perfume sprayed in front of him. Stiles straightens up a little.

"Oh?"

"Just for another night," Peter says, stepping out of the doorway to come fractionally closer, the finger outlining the sink moving over to Stiles' thigh, trailing up his side. "One last walk-in appointment."

A smile creeps up Stiles’ mouth. “I think that works.” He winds his arms around Peter's shoulders. "So should I go ahead and order that stethoscope off Amazon?"

"Why not," Peter concedes. "You only live once.”

Or in Peter’s case, twice. Although when Stiles is around, it feels like a few times more than that.


End file.
